1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a vehicle body assembly system for feeding various body components to vehicle body members conveyed in succession along a body assembly line and assembling the body components to the body members.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A vehicle body assembly system using robots is disclosed in Japanese Pat. Publication No. 53(1978)-21542. In the vehicle body assembly system, there are provided locating devices for feeding various body components such as a cab side to a body member such as an underbody conveyed along an assembly line and supporting the components in place with respect to the body member at predetermined stations along the assembly line. The locating devices are provided with a delivery device such as a manipulator for delivering the body components transferred to the locating devices by a part feeding device. Robots are provided at the stations to weld the body components positioned with respect to the body member by the locating devices to the body member.
The known system is disadvantageous in that since the robots are used exclusively for welding the components to the body member, waiting time of the robots is long and the time efficiency of the robots is low.
In order to improve the time efficiency of the robots, it has been proposed to provide the welding robots with functions to deliver the body components from the part feeding device to the locating device, thereby shortening the waiting time of the robots.
However, though effective for the components requiring a locating device, e.g., a cab side, the proposal is not so effective for components which can be directly assembled to the body member without assistance of a locating device, e.g., a roof panel or a cowl-and-dash panel, and accordingly, the time efficiency of the robots in the overall assembly line cannot be substantially improved.